Night flying this evening!

Earlier this week I was asked if I wanted to go night flying on the weekend. Somewhat surprisingly :-) the weather turned out really good and so tonight I got my chance to get my night rating underway. This evening's flight was in the Club's Piper PA28-161, ZK-MBG [the same one I flew during daylight hours yesterday] and it started with flying up to the Hutt Valley for some medium and steep turns, then back for a series of circuits.

Fun fun fun!

One circuit was a full stop landing where we had to vacate the runway and do a tiki-tour of the eastern [main] apron and the last touch-and-go was followed by a flight over the city centre for 10-15 minutes while the tower took care of a bunch of departures. I'm hoping that the next flight is a dual checkout then off for some solo circuits.. we'll see and it might depend on how soon I get to do the next flight!

Did I mention it was fun? The only slightly freaky bit was heading back from the city to land. We had to head down to the south, and then keep going for a couple of miles. There's nothing much to see out the front [some lights off in the distance to the right in the South Island, probably Blenheim], and if I looked back over my left shoulder I could see the Airport and some of the city... but in front.... nothing. No moon, a few stars, no horizon... nothing. Oh well, that's what instruments are for, right?

Anyway, there's no photos [way to busy concentrating on that flying thing!] so you'll have to make do with this one. Did I mention it was fun? :-)